English title: Gadamer's interpretation of the Aristotelian Protrepticus. -/- Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the main hypotheses of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his 1928 essay Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, emphasizing the Gadamerian reception of the notions of phrónēsis, hēdonḗ and, to a lesser extent, phýsis. It will be attempted to show that in this early work of Gadamer there is more than a methodological and interpretative debate regarding the Protrepticus (...) and the Aristotelian ethics. Lastly, the paper argues that it is possible to read in the main arguments of this early essay the first intellectual maturation of relevance of Gadamer, expressed in the form of a critical dialogue with his great masters (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), departing from the new interpretative possibilities that philology and phenomenology opened to his studies on the ethical-political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The theoretical consequences of this early article would have both paved the way of Gadamer’s next theoretical interventions regarding Platonic political philosophy as well as for the future developments of philosophical hermeneutics. /// -/- Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es presentar y analizar las principales hipótesis de Hans-Georg Gadamer en su ensayo de 1928 Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik, poniendo énfasis en la recuperación gadameriana de las nociones de phrónēsis, hēdonḗ y, en menor medida, phýsis. Se intenta demostrar que en este trabajo temprano de Gadamer hay, en términos metodológicos e interpretativos, más que una discusión con Werner Jaeger con relación al Protréptico y a la ética aristotélica. Finalmente, este artículo sostiene que es posible leer en las principales argumentaciones del ensayo la primera maduración intelectual de relevancia de Gadamer, expresada en forma de diálogo crítico con sus grandes maestros (Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Friedländer), a partir de las nuevas posibilidades interpretativas que la filología y fenomenología le abrieron para el estudio de la filosofía ético-política de Platón y Aristóteles. Las consecuencias teóricas de este temprano artículo habrían signado tanto el camino de sus siguientes intervenciones teóricas en tono a la filosofía política platónica como también los futuros desarrollos de la hermenéutica filosófica. (shrink)

O presente artigo aduz a interpretação de Martin Heidegger do conceito de ἀλήθεια – tradicionalmente traduzido por verdade – na filosofia de Platão, a partir da célebre alegoria da caverna presente na República. Segundo o posicionamento inicial de Heidegger, ἀλήθεια era originalmente pensada pelos gregos como desvelamento até Platão, com quem o sentido do termo se transforma e passa a expressar a retitude da percepção. Contudo, as críticas filológicas proferidas contra Heidegger por Paul Friedländer fizeram com que seu posicionamento (...) histórico-filológico inicial fosse em certa medida alterado, passando a sustentar que os gregos antigos, embora tivessem experimentado o acontecimento original de ἀλήθεια, não foram capazes de expressá-lo como tal. Por conseguinte, Heidegger também abandonou a tese de que houve em Platão uma mudança essencial no sentido de ἀλήθεια. (shrink)

What is the correct metric of distributive justice? Proponents of the capability approach claim that distributive metrics should be articulated in terms of individuals’ effective abilities to achieve important and worthwhile goals. Defenders of resourcism, by contrast, maintain that metrics should instead focus on the distribution of external resources. This debate is now more than three decades old, and it has produced a vast and still growing literature. The present paper aims to provide a fresh perspective on this protracted debate. (...) It does so by defending capability metrics while also criticizing the two most common arguments used to support them, and sympathetically reconstructing the arguments for resourcism. I ultimately argue that while sweeping defenses of the capability approach do not succeed, capability theorists can indeed vindicate the justice-relevance of certain capabilities while still accommodating what is plausible in resourcism. (shrink)

This paper argues that societal duties of health promotion are underwritten (at least in large part) by a principle of beneficence. Further, this principle generates duties of justice that correlate with rights, not merely “imperfect” duties of charity or generosity. To support this argument, I draw on a useful distinction from bioethics and on a somewhat neglected approach to social obligation from political philosophy. The distinction is that between general and specific beneficence; and the approach from political philosophy has at (...) times been called equality of concern. After clarifying the distinction and setting out the basis of the equality of concern view, I argue that the result is a justice-based principle of “specific” beneficence that should be reflected in a society’s health policy. I then draw on this account to criticize, refine, and extend some prominent health care policy proposals from the bioethics literature. (shrink)

Behavioral intervention techniques leveraging reactive responses have gained popularity as tools for promoting ethical behavior. Choice architects, for example, design and present default opt-out options to nudge individuals into accepting preselected choices deemed beneficial to both the decision-maker and society. Such interventions can also employ mild financial incentives or affective triggers including joy, fear, empathy, social pressure, and reputational rewards. We argue, however, that ethical competence is achieved via reflection, and that heavy reliance on reactive behavioral interventions can undermine the (...) development of ethical competence over the long term. Specifically, drawbacks may occur through motivational displacement, dependency, moral crowding out, loss of personal autonomy, and reactance. We introduce complementary cognitive boosting techniques designed to stimulate reflective cognition, as a more promising long-term strategy for instilling ethical behavior. One such approach is the Moral Self-Awareness (MSA) motivational construct, which incrementally leads agents to increasing levels of ethical reflection. We explain why ethical boosting approaches present more edifying and durable alternatives to reactive behavioral interventions and offer suggestions for social and organizational policy. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the extent to which economies in the developed and developing world rely on gig workers to perform essential tasks such as health care, personal transport, food and package delivery, and ad hoc tasking services. As a result, workers who provide such services are no longer perceived as mere low-skilled laborers, but as essential workers who fulfill a crucial role in society. The newly elevated moral and economic status of these workers increases consumer demand for corporate (...) social responsibility regarding this stakeholder group – specifically for practices that increase worker freedom and rewards. We provide algorithmic tools for online labor platforms to meet this demand, thereby bolstering their social purpose and ethical branding while better protecting themselves from future reputational crises. To do so, we advance a managerial strategy rooted in moral self-awareness theory in order to leverage customers’ virtuous self-perception and increase gig-worker freedom. (shrink)

When a belief is self-fulfilling, having it guarantees its truth. When a belief is self-defeating, having it guarantees its falsity. These are the cases of “self-impacting” beliefs to be examined below. Scenarios of self-defeating beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack sufficient reason to have any belief whatsoever. Scenarios of self-fulfilling beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack reason to have any one belief over another. Both scenarios have been used (...) independently to challenge Evidentialism, on which what we may rationally believe is all and only what fits our current evidence. Here we tie the two scenarios together and explore what a knowledge-sensitive evidentialist approach to one implies for the other. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss three probabilistic arguments for the existence of multiple universes. First, we provide an analysis of total evidence and use that analysis to defend Roger White's "this universe" objection to a standard fine-tuning argument for multiple universes. Second, we explain why Rodney Holder's recent cosmological argument for multiple universes is unconvincing. Third, we develop a "Cartesian argument" for multiple universes. While this argument is not open to the objections previously noted, we show that, given certain highly (...) plausible assumptions about evidence and epistemic probability, the proposition which it treats as evidence cannot coherently be regarded as evidence for anything. This raises the question of whether to reject the assumptions or accept that such a proposition cannot be evidence. (shrink)

The generative AI boom is unleashing its minions. Enterprise software vendors have rolled out legions of automated assistants that use large language model (LLM) technology, such as ChatGPT, to offer users helpful suggestions or to execute simple tasks. These so-called copilots and chatbots can increase productivity and automate tedious manual work. In this article, we explain how that leads to the risk that users' ethical competence may degrade over time — and what to do about it.

There is growing concern that a global economic system fueled predominately by financial incentives may not maximize human flourishing and social welfare externalities. If so, this presents a challenge of how to get economic actors to adopt a more virtuous motivational mindset. Relying on historical, psychological, and philosophical research, we show how such a mindset can be instilled. First, we demonstrate that historically, financial self-interest has never in fact been the only guiding motive behind free markets, but that markets themselves (...) are representations of our individual and collective moral identities. Building on this understanding, we review the research on how economic incentives crowd out virtue-oriented concerns. We then introduce the concept of moral self-awareness (MSA), an evolving mindset informed by reflection on moral identity, namely what one’s actions say about oneself given the impacts on others or society that one’s action may effect. MSA comprises three fundamental aspects of virtue-oriented reasoning: pride, shame, and guilt. Finally, we offer a four-stage model anchored in systems theory, yielding ever more refined motivating strategies for maximizing human flourishing and social welfare externalities. (shrink)

Dilation occurs when an interval probability estimate of some event E is properly included in the interval probability estimate of E conditional on every event F of some partition, which means that one’s initial estimate of E becomes less precise no matter how an experiment turns out. Critics maintain that dilation is a pathological feature of imprecise probability models, while others have thought the problem is with Bayesian updating. However, two points are often overlooked: (1) knowing that E is stochastically (...) independent of F (for all F in a partition of the underlying state space) is sufficient to avoid dilation, but (2) stochastic independence is not the only independence concept at play within imprecise probability models. In this paper we give a simple characterization of dilation formulated in terms of deviation from stochastic independence, propose a measure of dilation, and distinguish between proper and improper dilation. Through this we revisit the most sensational examples of dilation, which play up independence between dilator and dilatee, and find the sensationalism undermined by either fallacious reasoning with imprecise probabilities or improperly constructed imprecise probability models. (shrink)

Transactive memory theory describes the processes by which benefits for memory can occur when remembering is shared in dyads or groups. In contrast, cognitive psychology experiments demonstrate that social influences on memory disrupt and inhibit individual recall. However, most research in cognitive psychology has focused on groups of strangers recalling relatively meaningless stimuli. In the current study, we examined social influences on memory in groups with a shared history, who were recalling a range of stimuli, from word lists to personal, (...) shared memories. We focused in detail on the products and processes of remembering during in-depth interviews with 12 older married couples. These interviews consisted of three recall tasks: (1) word list recall; (2) personal list recall, where stimuli were relevant to the couples’ shared past; and (3) an open-ended autobiographical interview. We conducted these tasks individually and then collaboratively two weeks later. Across each of the tasks, although some couples demonstrated collaborative inhibition, others demonstrated collaborative facilitation. We identified a number of factors that predicted collaborative success, in particular, group-level strategy use. Our results show that collaboration may help or hinder memory, and certain interactions are more likely to produce collaborative benefits. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy’s much-discussed ‘restrictionist’ program seeks to delineate the extent to which philosophers may legitimately rely on intuitions about possible cases. The present paper shows that this program can be (i) put to the service of diagnostic problem-resolution (in the wake of J.L. Austin) and (ii) pursued by constructing and experimentally testing psycholinguistic explanations of intuitions which expose their lack of evidentiary value: The paper develops a psycholinguistic explanation of paradoxical intuitions that are prompted by verbal case-descriptions, and presents two (...) experiments that support the explanation. This debunking explanation helps resolve philosophical paradoxes about perception (known as ‘arguments from hallucination’). (shrink)

The simulation hypothesis can reinforce a cynical dismissal of human potential. This attitude can allow online platform designers to rationalize employing manipulative neuromarketing techniques to control user decisions. We point to cognitive boosting techniques at both user and designer levels to build critical reflection and mindfulness.

Numerous high-profile ethics scandals, rising inequality, and the detrimental effects of climate change dramatically underscore the need for business schools to instill a commitment to social purpose in their students. At the same time, the rising financial burden of education, increasing competition in the education space, and overreliance on graduates’ financial success as the accepted metric of quality have reinforced an instrumentalist climate. These conflicting aims between social and financial purpose have created an existential crisis for business education. To resolve (...) this impasse, we draw on the concept of moral self-awareness to offer a system-theoretical strategy for crowding-in a culture of ethics within business schools. We argue that to do so, business schools will need to (1) reframe the purpose of business, (2) reframe the meaning of professional success, and (3) reframe the ethos of business education itself. (shrink)

Ask most any cognitive scientist working today if a digital computational system could develop aesthetic sensibility and you will likely receive the optimistic reply that this remains an open empirical question. However, I attempt to show, while drawing upon the later Wittgenstein, that the correct answer is in fact available. And it is a negative a priori. It would seem, for example, that recent computational successes in generative AI and textual attribution, most notably those of Donald Foster (famed finder of (...) Ted Kazinski a.k.a. “the Unibomber”) speak favorably of the connectionist model's capacity to overcome the “aspect blindness” handicap in this domain. I argue however that such results are only achievable when rigid input‐to‐output parameters are given, and that this element is precisely what is absent in standard examples of aesthetic judgment. I thus conclude that while the connectionist model anticipated by Turing may provide the best approach for the AI project, its capacity for meeting its own sufficiency requirements is necessarily crippled by its inability to share in what can be generally referred to as the collective engagements of human solidarity. (shrink)

Mismatch is a prominent concept in evolutionary medicine and a number of philosophers have published analyses of this concept. The word ‘mismatch’ has been used in a diversity of ways across a range of sciences, leading these authors to regard it as a vague concept in need of philosophical clarification. Here, in contrast, we concentrate on the use of mismatch in modelling and experimentation in evolutionary medicine. This reveals a rigorous theory of mismatch within which the term ‘mismatch’ is indeed (...) used in several ways, not because it is ill-defined but because different forms of mismatch are.distinguished within the theory. Contemporary evolutionary medicine has unified the idea of ‘evolutionary mismatch’, derived from the older idea of ‘adaptive lag’ in evolution, with ideas about mismatch in development and physiology derived from the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) paradigm. A number of publications in evolutionary medicine have tried to make this theoretical framework explicit. We build on these to present the theory in as simple and general a form as possible. We introduce terminology, largely drawn from the existing literature, to distinguish the different forms of mismatch. This integrative theory of mismatch captures how organisms track environments across space and time on multiple scales in order to maintain an adaptive match to the environment, and how failures of adaptive tracking lead to disease. Mismatch is a productive organising concept within this theory which helps researchers articulate how physiology, development and evolution interact with one another and with environmental change to explain health outcomes. (shrink)

Extant research suggests that individuals employ traditional moral heuristics to support their observed altruistic behavior; yet findings have largely been limited to inductive extrapolation and rely on relatively few traditional frames in so doing, namely, deontology in organizational behavior and virtue theory in law and economics. Given that these and competing moral frames such as utilitarianism can manifest as identical behavior, we develop a moral framing instrument—the Philosophical Moral-Framing Measure (PMFM)—to expand and distinguish traditional frames associated and disassociated with observed (...) altruistic behavior. The validation of our instrument based on 1015 subjects in 3 separate real stakes scenarios indicates that heuristic forms of deontology, virtue-theory, and utilitarianism are strongly related to such behavior, and that egoism is an inhibitor. It also suggests that deontic and virtue-theoretical frames may be commonly perceived as intertwined and opens the door for new research on self-abnegation, namely, a perceived moral obligation toward suffering and self-denial. These findings hold the potential to inform ongoing conversations regarding organizational citizenship and moral crowding out, namely, how financial incentives can undermine altruistic behavior. (shrink)

Our rapidly increasing reliance on frictionless AI interactions may increase cognitive and emotional distance, thereby letting our adaptive resilience slacken and our ethical virtues atrophy from disuse. Many trends already well underway involve the offloading of cognitive, emotional, and ethical labor to AI software in myriad social, civil, personal, and professional contexts. Gradually, we may lose the inclination and capacity to engage in critically reflective thought, making us more cognitively and emotionally vulnerable and thus more anxious and prone to manipulation (...) from false news, deceptive advertising, and political rhetoric. In this article, I consider the overarching features of this problem and provide a framework to help AI designers tackle it through system enhancements in smartphones and other products and services in the burgeoning internet of things (IoT) marketplace. The framework is informed by two ideas: psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s cognitive dual process theory and moral self-awareness theory, a four-level model of moral identity that I developed with Benjamin M. Cole. (shrink)

The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of (...) anthropomorphizing moralism which I call anthropomoralism, defined as the tendency to project morally relevant characteristics of personhood onto merely sentient non-persons by discounting their existing differences with actual persons. I show that this attitude can lend support to the resurgent attempt to treat fetal pain as equally morally considerable to that of childbearing persons they gestate within. I explain that the only sound way to apply the principle of equal consideration of comparable interests is to compare experiences of actual persons. Therefore, while supporting a vegan economy may be morally praiseworthy, it should not be deemed morally obligatory. (shrink)

Although Alston believed epistemically circular arguments were able to justify their conclusions, he was also disquieted by them. We will argue that Alston was right to be disquieted. We explain Alston’s view of epistemic circularity, the considerations that led him to accept it, and the purposes he thought epistemically circular arguments could serve. We then build on some of Alston’s remarks and introduce further limits to the usefulness of such arguments and introduce a new problem that stems from those limits. (...) The upshot is that adopting Alston’s view that epistemically circular arguments can be used to justify their conclusions is more costly than even he thought. (shrink)

In this article we examine Kant’s understanding of toleration by including a study of all instances in which he directly uses the language of toleration and related concepts. We use this study to resolve several key areas of interpretative dispute concerning Kant’s views on toleration. We argue that Kant offers a nuanced and largely unappreciated approach to thinking about toleration, and related concepts, across three normative spheres: the political, the interpersonal and the personal. We examine shortcomings in earlier interpretations and (...) conclude by arguing that the theme of toleration in Kant’s work, while coherent and important, is neither as central nor as peripheral as suggested by previous interpretations. Further, while Kant is critical of the arrogance of toleration in the political sphere, he is more positive toward the role of toleration in the interpersonal and personal spheres since it promotes virtue. (shrink)

The report describes an application of ontologies to the analysis of wind turbine manufacturing data. We show how applying ontologies to composite materials data may facilitate the discovery of optimum composite material designs that will deliver maximum wind turbine blade performance within environmental constraints.

We argue that attempts to extrapolate moral motives for non-egoistic behavior in organizational behavior often interpret results empathically or deontically, while leaving other moral motivational frames, such as the utilitarian and virtue ethical, under-examined. We encourage the creation of experimental measures to distinguish various philosophical frames.

Use of the word “worry” is on the rise. Does that reflect our anxious time — or make it worse?

A popular positivistic line of thinking seems to be cropping up again, declaring that the sciences are on the verge of a paradigmatic shift. One that will merge science and philosophy to finally answer all the great big questions once and for all. Questions such as What is life? What is consciousness? What makes individuals who they are? Why does our universe seem fine-tuned for our existence? How did it all begin? While such questions are undoubtedly important, the truth is, (...) they are essentially philosophical. That is to say, they escape the kind of exactness required of the hard sciences. The upshot is that they are at best only answerable to a limited extent, if they are even answerable at all. (shrink)

Like any social science, management and organization sits astride two literary and epistemic disciplines; the empirical and the conceptual. I argue that emphasizing the former to the detriment of the latter, as is often the case in management and organization research, creates a conceptual blindness that compromises progress in the field. I show how adopting a more philosophically attuned methodology buttresses the conceptual tools of management and organization research via deduction, induction, normative grounding, and overcoming the illusion of unanimity.

Masculinity? This book attempts to answer this one-word question by revisiting key philosophical concepts in the construction of masculinity, not in order to re-write or debunk them again, but in order to provide a radically new departure to what masculinity means today. This new departure focuses on an understanding of sexuality and gender that is neither structured in oppositional terms nor in performative terms, but in a perpendicular relation akin to that which brings space and time together. In doing so, (...) this book doesn’t aim to establish yet another theory within the field of masculism or men’s studies, but to put forward a personal account of how a revised understanding of the relationship between space, time, and gender can thoroughly alter concepts of masculinity. virility and patriarchy. (shrink)

Most prominent arguments favoring the widespread discretionary business practice of sending jobs overseas, known as ‘offshoring,’ attempt to justify the trend by appeal to utilitarian principles. It is argued that when business can be performed more cost-effectively offshore, doing so tends, over the longterm, to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. This claim is supported by evidence that exporting jobs actively promotes economic development overseas while simultaneously increasing the revenue of the exporting country. After showing that offshoring might (...) indeed be justified on utilitarian grounds, I argue that according to Rawlsian social-contract theory, the practice is nevertheless irrational and unjust. For it unfairly expects the people of a given society to accept job-gain benefits to peoples of other societies as outweighing job-loss hardships it imposes on itself. Finally, I conclude that contrary to socialism, which relies much more on government control, capitalism constitutes a social contract that places a particularly strong moral obligation on corporations themselves to refrain from offshoring. (shrink)

These comments, which take the form of criticism and response, were the basis of a zoom conversation at the Eastern APA, January 2021. Josh is putting them up on philpapers (with permission from all involved) in case they are helpful to people interested in the themes of this book.

This case takes place in the context of a small to medium-sized retail clothing firm. It examines the latest trends in social media marketing technology and the potential ethical issues regarding privacy infringement and behavioral control of teenagers and young adults that such technology presents. The scenario invites students to consider how much, if at all, such marketing practices should be resisted going forward.

Commonsense reasoning about the physical world, as exemplified by "Iron sinks in water" or "If a ball is dropped it gains speed," will be indispensable in future programs. We argue that to make such predictions (namely, envisioning), programs should use abstract entities (such as the gravitational field), principles (such as the principle of superposition), and laws (such as the conservation of energy) of physics for representation and reasoning. These arguments are in accord with a recent study in physics instruction where (...) expert problem solving is related to the construction of physical representations that contain fictitious, imagined entities such as forces and momenta (Larkin 1983). We give several examples showing the power of physical representations. (shrink)

This essay shows how John Henry Newman reconciled the certitude of faith with a fallibilist epistemology. While Newman holds that many of our beliefs are held with certitude, he does not conceive of all certitude as Cartesian, apodictic certitude. In this way, he walks a middle road between rationalism and fideism.

The intellectual culture of scientism clouds our understanding of science itself. What’s more, it eclipses alternative ways of knowing — chiefly the philosophical — that can actually yield greater certainty than the scientific. While science and philosophy do at times overlap, they are fundamentally different approaches to understanding. So philosophers should not add to the conceptual confusion that subsumes all knowledge into science. Rather, we should underscore the fact that various disciplines we ordinarily treat as science are at least as (...) — if not more —philosophical than scientific. (shrink)

Today, dramatically increasing economic inequality, imminent climatological calamity, and a global pandemic now place the timeless debate over capitalism into stark relief. Though many seek to pin the blame on capitalism’s excesses, they would do well to recall the historical record of socialism’s deficiencies, namely, stifling innovation, lumbering inefficiency, and stagnation. Fortunately, our moral psychology affords a middle way between these two extremes. For while economic incentives have a tendency to let our civic and prosocial impulses atrophy from disuse, these (...) can also be rekindled when we are faced with highly compelling reasons to think and act for the greater good of all concerned. The coronavirus pandemic now unfolding might well offer us an opportunity to instill a culture of heightened moral self-awareness spurring a more virtuous form of capitalism. (shrink)

This article aims to map the locations of identity prejudice that occurs in the context of a Community of Inquiry. My claim is that epistemic injustice, which usually originates from seemingly ‘minor’ cases of identity prejudice, can potentially leak into the actual practice of P4wC. Drawing from Fricker, the various forms of epistemic injustice are made explicit when epistemic practices are framed within concrete social circumstances where power, privilege and authority intersect, which is observable in school settings. In connection, despite (...) the pedagogical improvements P4wC offers, some forms of identity prejudice prevalent in traditional classrooms may persist, affecting children who are identified with negatively stereotyped social groups. It is, therefore, important to pay attention to the reality of epistemic injustice and the possible locations where it may potentially surface in the COI. Drawing from my P4wC experience, I show that identity prejudice stems from the intersections of the roles and positionalities of the participants in a philosophical dialogue. These intersections point towards the epistemic relationships of the P4wC teacher, the students, and the P4wC program itself. I conclude that identity prejudice arises circumstantially and/or substantively in P4wC scholarship and practice. (shrink)

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

This paper challenges the assumption that to consider the subjective interests of others is to take on a burden that constrains our personal freedom. The nature of compassion will be examined as a disposition to have a certain subjective insight into a given social atmosphere. The inquiry will develop by showing the role that this emotive quality plays in freeing the will from perceptive constraints. The discussion will take place within the context of both Analytic and Buddhist philosophies of moral (...) psychology in order to show that together they provide a coherent groundwork in support of the thesis at hand. (shrink)

This essay offers a reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of the voluntary in the Nicomachean Ethics, arguing that the voluntary grounds one notion of responsibility with two levels, and therefore both rational and non-rational animals are responsible for voluntary actions. Aristotle makes no distinction between causal and moral responsibility in the NE; rather, voluntariness and prohairesis form different bases for responsibility and make possible different levels of responsibility, but both levels of responsibility fall within the ethical sphere and are aptly appraised. (...) Important differences between the two levels remain. Animals and children are aptly appraised for direct voluntary actions. Conversely, only adults capable of prohairesis or rational choice are appraised for indirect voluntary actions—psychologically compelled actions that stem from character. Furthermore, while children and animals are responsible for actions, only adults casually contribute to the formation of their characters and thus are aptly appraised for character traits. (shrink)

Research into the proper mission of business falls within the context of theoretical and applied ethics. And ethics is fast becoming a part of required business school curricula. However, while business ethics research occasionally appears in high‐profile venues, it does not yet enjoy a regular place within any top management journal. I offer a partial explanation of this paradox and suggestions for resolving it. I begin by discussing the standard conception of human nature given by neoclassical economics as disseminated in (...) business schools; showing it is a significant obstacle to an accurate conception of ethics and how this limits consideration of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. I then examine the scope of the top management journals, showing how their empirical and descriptive focus leaves little room for ethics, which is an essentially conceptual and prescriptive discipline. Finally, I suggest avenues for research into the ethical mission of business, generally—and sustainability and CSR, in particular—by appeal to the precepts of Harvard Business School’s Master’s in Business Administration ethics oath modeled on the medical and legal professions. (shrink)

Alex Rosenberg’s latest book purports to establish that narrative history cannot have any epistemic value. Rosenberg argues not for the replacement of narrative history by something more science-like, but rather the end of histories understood as an account of human doings under a certain description. This review critiques three of his main arguments: 1) narrative history must root its explanations in folk psychology, 2) there are no beliefs nor desires guiding human action, and 3) historical narratives are morally and ethically (...) pernicious. Rosenberg’s book reprises themes about action explanation he first rehearsed 40 years ago, albeit with neuroscience rather than sociobiology now “preempting” explanations that trade on folk psychological notions. Although Rosenberg’s argument strategy has not altered, the review develops a number of reasons as to why his approach now lacks any plausibility as a strategy for explaining histories, much less a successful one. (shrink)

In this article, I propose to integrate indigenous knowledges in the Philosophy for/with Children theory and practice. I make the claim that it is possible to treat indigenous knowledges, not only as topics for philosophical dialogues with children but as presuppositions of the philosophical activity itself within the Community of Inquiry. Such integration is important for at least three (3) reasons: First, recognizing indigenous ways of thinking and seeing the world informs us of other non-dominant forms of knowledges, methods to (...) produce knowledge and criteria to determine knowledge. Second, the dominance of western standards of producing and determining knowledge, especially in non-western societies, needs to be reduced, balanced and informed by local knowledges and experiences. And third, indigenous knowledges reinforce a culturally responsive P4wC that responds to the challenges arising in multicultural and ethnically diverse classrooms. There are two (2) possible intersections where such integration may take place, namely: a) Epistemology, where I claim that the integration of a “presentational epistemology” immanent in indigenous patterns of thinking provides a counterweight to Lipman’s strong adherence to analytic-representational epistemology, and b) Pedagogy, which takes shape in an “indigenized” Community of Inquiry that highlights the values of interconnectedness, situatedness and relationality. (shrink)

In order to fight massive vandalism the English- language Wikipedia has developed a system of surveillance which is carried out by humans and bots, supported by various tools. Central to the selection of edits for inspection is the process of using filters or profiles. Can this profiling be justified? On the basis of a careful reading of Frederick Schauer’s books about rules in general (1991) and profiling in particular (2003) I arrive at several conclusions. The effectiveness, efficiency, and risk-aversion of (...) edit selection all greatly increase as a result. The argument for increasing predictability suggests making all details of profiling manifestly public. Also, a wider distribution of the more sophisticated anti-vandalism tools seems indicated. As to the specific dimensions used in profiling, several critical remarks are developed. When patrollers use ‘assisted edit- ing’ tools, severe ‘overuse’ of several features (anonymity, warned before) is a definite possibility, undermining profile efficacy. The easy remedy suggested is to render all of them invisible on the interfaces as displayed to patrollers. Finally, concerning not only assisted editing tools but tools against vandalism generally, it is argued that the anonymity feature is a sensitive category: anons have been in dispute for a long time (while being more prone to vandalism). Targeting them as a special category violates the social contract upon which Wikipedia is based. The feature is therefore a candidate for mandatory ‘underuse’: it should be banned from all anti-vandalism filters and profiling algorithms, and no longer be visible as a special edit trait. (shrink)

In this chapter, Gage and McAllister respond to various objections to the phenomenal conservative position in religious epistemology. In particular, they respond to the objections that seemings are the ultimate source of justification, that PC makes epistemic justification too easy, that PC involves conceptual circularity, and that PC lacks an objective connection to truth.

Prominent non-speciesist attempts to determine the amount of moral standing properly attributable to conscious beings argue that certain non-human animals should be granted the highest consideration as self-conscious persons. Most of these theories also include a lesser moral standing for the sentient, or merely conscious, non-person. Thus, the standard approach has been to advocate a two-tiered theory—'sentience' or 'consciousness' and 'self-consciousness' or 'personhood'. While the first level seems to present little interpretative difficulty, the second has recently been criticized as a (...) rather obscurantist label. For it would seem, both on empirical and conceptual grounds, that self-consciousness/personhood comes in degrees. If these observations are at all revealing, they indicate that the two-tiered model is inadequate. This is the view I will support here, replacing the standard dichotomy with a more accurate seven-tiered account of cognitive moral standing adaptable to all three major perspectives of moral reasoning, namely, utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics. (shrink)

In this article, I outline a strategy for challenging J.L. Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument, and specifically the premise within the argument that asserts the existence of what Schellenberg calls nonresistant nonbelief. Drawing on some of the philosophical resources of skeptical theism, I show how this premise is based on a particular “noseeum assumption”—what I call Schellenberg’s Noseeum Assumption—that underwrites a particular “noseeum argument.” This assumption is that, regarding putative nonresistant nonbelievers, more likely than not we’d detect these nonbelievers’ resistance toward God (...) if there were any. I give reasons for thinking that it is not more reasonable to affirm than to refrain from affirming Schellenberg’s Noseeum Assumption, and so reason to think that the hiddenness argument is not a good argument for atheism. I also defend the strategy I outline against several objections. (shrink)

Pope Francis takes the Big Bang as supplying empirical evidence for God’s existence, going so far as to credit God’s will as the force behind natural selection. So if natural selection is the emanation of divine will, then so too is what Richard Dawkins calls the “selfish gene” underlying it. The trouble is that the natural forces of self-interest may win out over the better angels of our nature, spelling disaster for the human species—and the planet sustaining it. For the (...) drive of individual self-interest is the main fuel of capitalism, which has become the dominant global economic paradigm. And this unbridled self-interest is arguably most responsible for widespread environmental degradation. Therefore, if humanity should ultimately expire as a direct result of its evolutionary adaptations, it won’t exactly be a ringing endorsement of the architect of life, the universe, and everything. (shrink)

This paper provides a critique of the contemporary notion of intellectual property based on the consequences of Wittgenstein's “private language argument”. The reticence commonly felt toward recent applications of patent law, e.g., sports moves, is held to expose erroneous metaphysical assumptions inherent in the spirit of current IP legislation. It is argued that the modern conception of intellectual property as a kind of natural right, stems from the mistaken internalist or Augustinian picture of language that Wittgenstein attempted to diffuse. This (...) view becomes persuasive once it is shown that a complete understanding of the argument against private language must include Wittgenstein's investigation of the role of the will in the creative process. It is argued that original thought is not born by decree of the will, but engendered by a public context of meaning and value. What marks a person as a genius is, therefore, according to Wittgenstein, not some sovereign capacity of conceptual world-making, but merely a propitious dose of intellectual courage. (shrink)